Campaigning for the second phase ends

Campaigning for the second phase of Urban Local Bodies poll in 25 districts where polling would be held on November 26, ended on Friday evening.

There are 83 candidates in the fray, including 42 women, for six Mayoral posts in the second phase. There are 638 candidates contesting for Chairperson’s post in 51 nagar palika parishad.

Districts going to polls in this phase are  Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Amroha, Rampur, Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur, Aligarh, Mathura, Mainpuri, Farrukhabad, Etawah, Lalitpur, Banda, Allahabad, Lucknow, Sultanpur, Ambedkarnagar, Bahraich, Shravasti, Sant Kabirnagar, Deoria, Ballia, Varanasi and Bhadohi.

Several prestigious Mayoral posts like PM Narendra Modi’s constitunecy Varanasi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s constituency Lucknow, Union minister V K Singh’s constituency Ghaziabad and Sangam City of Allahabad, will go to poll in the second phase.

Polling would be held from 7.30 am to 5 pm amid tight security wherein more than 80,000 security personnel, including 40 companies of Central Para-Military Forces, havbeen entrusted with the job of looking after law and order. The third and last phase of civic elections would be held on November 29. Counting of votes for all the three phases would be done on December 1 and results are expected to be declared the same day. Meanwhile on Friday, State Election commissioner (SEC) SK Agarwal held video-conferencing with district magistrates and police chiefs of 25 districts going to polls on November 26. They were instructed about compliance of directives issues by the panel for free and fair conduct of the elections and maintenance of law and order. The SEC specifically enquired about deployment of Central Para Military Forces and distribution of voter slips by booth-level officers to the electorate.